Followed by more interesting science about phages by @sultannazir.bsky.social

Excited to present work from my preprint at #SMBI2025 @uni-jena.de on September 18th. I will be speaking on how spatial structure can explain the association of microbial accessory genes with inducible prophages. asb-conference.hki-jena.de/schedule/

Excited to share new #program, STEPS, which can simulate #dynamics of the E. coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (#LTEE) or other microbes in serial transfer regime. telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/s... STEPS developed by @devinmlake.bsky.social, Zachary Matson, Minako Izutsu, and me.

Okay this is what Pride is. "Around 100,000 march at Budapest Pride in defiance of Hungary’s ban on the event" The picture brings me incredible joy. So many people. Giant flag. So much joy. So much bravery. www.pbs.org/newshour/wor...

The first paper of my PhD is now available as a preprint! 🎉 Transposable elements (TEs) don't just jump within fungal genomes, they also move extensively between species. In this study, we screened over 1,300 fungal genomes and found a conservative estimate of 5,500+ horizontal transfer events.

🧩 PhD Position – Origins of Darwinian Inheritance 🧩 This joint PhD project between the @rug.nl (Rampal Etienne & Martijn Egas) and @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social (Bram van Dijk) explores how simple prebiotic systems could evolve reliable information transfer. Apply here: shorturl.at/WgYMF

Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Fuck Harry Potter.

🚨 🧬 Updated preprint on the completed BASEL collection - what's new? Some fun with bacterial immunity and a new P22 relative infecting E. coli K-12. A thread 🧵

Preprint out! Bacteria w/ hyper-replicative filamentous phage lead to overnight emergence of cheater phages. Bacteria w/ both phages can outcompete wildtype, then rapidly lose phage via a phage Tragedy of the Commons @shellyscrib.bsky.social @vscooper.micropopbio.org www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New online! Interactions and evolutionary relationships among bacterial mobile genetic elements

Inspired by the work of @renskevroomans.bsky.social and @escolizzi.bsky.social on "selfish multicellularity", I made a very different type of model to replicate their results. Take that #replicationcrisis! (try it yourself here: tbb.bio.uu.nl/bvd/simulati...)

🚨 Now that @sultannazir.bsky.social has written about his work, let me try and summarise what we found. The question we worked on was inspired by Takeuchi et al. (2023) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37339743/, who illustrated that (pro)phages are enriched in virulence factors compared to plasmids. [1/10]

We did it! We caught Starship #transposons moving between #fungal species in the lab, including between species separated by ~100my. We think Starships are a mediator of HGT in fungi, akin to conjugative elements in bacteria. Check out the preprint. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to share the first preprint from my PhD at @binfutrecht.bsky.social ! 1.5 years ago, @bramvandijk.bsky.social hired me to investigate: why do prophages preferentially carry virulence genes? Using mathematical models, we propose that spatial structure plays a key role. Here's a summary: 1/15

Okay… I gotta mute this one. It’s getting a bunch of replies about how it’s not worth explaining true things because “the right is stupid”. I want us all to reflect on the reality that calling working class Americans stupid only benefits people who stand to gain from a divided working class.

There is still time to apply to the Alma Dal Co School on Collective Behaviour! The deadline has been extended till March 16th. We would especially welcome applications from members of underrepresented groups. Limited travel grants are available. Apply now and join us! almadalcoschool.github.io

I think the Microbial Evolution feed is working! Simply add the #MEvoSky hashtag to your post and it will aggregate to the feed linked below. Feel free to introduce yourself in context of microbial evo and adjacent topics. Experimental and directed evo welcome too! bsky.app/profile/did:...

🆕New in @plosbiology.bsky.social: we show compensatory mutations make plasmids play Rock-Paper-Scissors and turn conjugation into a weapon🛡️💫✂️🦠 w/Rosanna Wright, Jamie Wood, @mbottery.bsky.social, @kmudz.bsky.social, @scottishwormboy.bsky.social, Ellie Harrison & @brockhurstlab.bsky.social #MicroSky

PhD studentship alert! Fully funded, co-supervised with @rokkrasovec.bsky.social and Prof Mike Bromley, University of Manchester Exploring routes of horizontal gene transfer in pathogenic fungi Exciting project, will be a bunch of fun! Come & join us 🔬 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Theoretical Biology and Bioinformatics at the protest against the budget cuts on education. This choice will cost - everyone - money in the long run. #WOinActie #wanbeleid

Large crowds mobilising today to protest (we could not even fit in 3 different trains) in The Hague. The Dutch government wants to cut 1 billion euros to science and education. This policy will damage the country profoundly. Stop the budget cuts. Protect the future. @woinactie.bsky.social

Bluesky is emerging as the new platform for science mikeyoungacademy.dk/bluesky-is-e...

coming down to the wires on #LGBTQSTEMDay to share a little starter pack of QPOC EEB scientists!! help grow this community and nominate your fave QPOC EEBer! CCmment/DM if you'd like to be added, I would love to connect :) go.bsky.app/S5fpXWm

Hola, I've just joined Bluesky. Follow me if you are interested in research on #phage diversity and their interaction with #plant pathogenic #bacteria. Also, more changes are coming! After a few years at @INRAE-PV I've just joined @phimresearch.bsky.social.

Me waiting for everyone to leave Twitter.

Mobile Elements Starter Pack on BlueSky! Interested in plasmids, phages, ICEs, transposons, integrons, and all things accessory genome? Follow this curated list of researchers and labs doing exciting work in mobile elements.

Deleted it finally.

Here's a starter pack for early career researchers in evolutionary biology. I prioritized the most-junior folks, and this list quickly filled up with undergrads, grad students, and postdocs. Might do another list later, but I'm tired. Have fun everyone! 🐒 #evobio go.bsky.app/MzND7nX

Seems that @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social ought to consider adding links to @bsky.app posts given the mass transfer of scientists from Twitter to @bsky.app that is taking place.

The Onion should buy Elsevier next

Love this idea for helping the community make the transition to Bluesky, so I’ve compiled a woefully incomplete list of microbial ecologists and -omics peeps I know are here. Please make suggestions and share. Let me know if you’d like to be added. go.bsky.app/TQpaTqF

Made my first starter pack! If I missed you, my apologies. I can add you. go.bsky.app/URt3Fbp

I just made a starter pack on Ecology and Evolution of AMR. 🦠 ⚡ 💊 Feel free to suggest names and I’ll add them as soon as I can!! go.bsky.app/CwEzc79

Great set of tips 🔽🧵! I'll add: - If you are coming from the bird site, consider using the same profile picture, at least initially, so that people recognize you - You can reorder your feeds (Feeds > Edit), and for instance put "Following" (chronological) first, like in the original BlueSky ../..

Seeing a bunch of new followers, so I just tidied up my Evolutionary Biologists starter pack—mostly trying to represent folks' fields right, and get in some topical journals/societies Hope it's useful, but I'd also love to see packs from other folks, to better cover the field go.bsky.app/TUNHbNu

Trying out BlueSky! Hoping to connect with other microbiologists and LGBTQIA+ scientists here 💕

Should I stay or should I go? 🎵 In a new opinion piece, Claudia Igler, Andrina Bernhard and I discuss how conjugative plasmids and temperate bacteriophages balance vertical and horizontal transmission: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... Our framework sheds light on many aspects of MGE biology (1/7)

PLEASE SHARE: PhD opportunity to start September 2025! Come work on climate change and antibiotic resistance with me, Ed Feil, Angus Buckling, and others. We will use lab experiments, modelling and sequencing to look how plasmid transfer, selection, and costs of resistance change with temperature.

Prophages in Vibrio #ISMEJournal from Martin Polz academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Hi everyone, I tried assembling a Microbiome & friends starter pack. 🦠🧫🔬 Still learning to use bluesky and might have missed you, let me know if you would like to be included. go.bsky.app/Fq36egy

Tried to put together a Microbial Evolution starter pack, but there were so many great people I didn't want to leave out it turned into 3 starter packs Comment or DM me if you were missed or would like to be added! A thread (1/3) go.bsky.app/6pkuYhi

🧵 New preprint! 🚨 Turns out that space (my obsession 😜) makes public goods more way more interesting: “Interaction range of common goods shapes Black Queen dynamics beyond the cheater-cooperator narrative.” doi.org/10.1101/2024... 🦠🔬 #Microbiology #EvolutionaryBiology

If you are interested in prophages, we have a new database: Prophage-DB. Check it out and all feedback is welcome biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

After a rejection, I went to my happy place: coding. The result: Cacatoo 2 is out! Cacatwo? bramvandijk88.github.io/cacatoo/ - Not just gridmodels: make flocks, shoving cells, and foraging ants. - Flocks can interact with the grid - Images/movies/output is easier to create 🧵 Examples in thread:

I've got a fully funded, 4-year PhD position available to work on virus-bacteria interactions in soils. Part of the GenerationResearch scheme at York aimed at widening access to postgrad research. Please share! generationresearch.ac.uk/phd_proposal...

It’s been 6 months since the words “phage” and “virulence” entered my daily vocabulary. The question is: why do phages carry virulence factors (VFs)? Excited to share some modelling ideas during the poster session of SMEEB 2024 in L’Aquila later this month! #phage #microbiome #VirEvol

🚨Check out our latest, out today in the Journal of Bacteriology! Targeted deletion of Pf prophages from diverse Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates has differential impacts on quorum sensing and virulence traits doi.org/10.1128/jb.0... 🧪🔬🧫🦠

#Viromics #VirusDiscovery 🦠 by #Metagenomics 🧬! We used real metagenomic data from diverse biomes to #benchmark state-of-the-art #bioinformatics virus identification tools: genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... @goncalopiedade.bsky.social @bedutilh.bsky.social 🧵 (1/4)

Enjoyable read @ccwendling.bsky.social! I am dubious about "the benefits of prophages are evident". AMR is only occasionally beneficial, and pathogenicity seems very temporal (host death/ immune system will catch up!) Future stuff for @sultannazir.bsky.social to model! ;D

Phage as signatures of healthy microbiomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.18.585470v1